Mercedes Schlapp

Mercedes Schlapp

Through the Islamic State group’s sophisticated social media outreach efforts, the militants are becoming the best global sales team, with the capability to recruit and radicalize men and women who are in search of purpose and absolute power in their lives. The group's propaganda videos have gone viral, and beheadings and crucifixions are becoming daily occurrences, all in the name of Allah and with the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate....

By Anupama Katakam

There are various versions of how and why Shirin Dalvi published the caricature. In an apology she wrote in a blog, she says: “I, Shirin Dalvi, begin with an apology for having printed the title cover of Charlie Hebdo. It was a mistake and I had no intention to hurt the feelings of my community. Like any other Muslim, I deeply respect Prophet Mohammed—sallallahu alahi wa sallam —Peace be upon Him…. We juxtaposed it with news of the Pope’s statement where he criticised the Prophet cartoons and said freedom of expression was not absolute and religious beliefs should not be mocked in the name of this freedom.” She also says that she does not understand French and hence it was a case of bad judgment on her part....

Samar Fatany

Samar Fatany

Muslim media professionals should have been more alert and should have strongly rejected the popularized name of the so-called “Islamic State” and should have labeled them with a name that truly describes their criminality, such as: “ the State of Al-Khawarij, “the outsiders who have deviated from the faith, “the State of “Al-Safaheen”, the butchers, or “the State of Al-Muhtaleen”, the impostors....

Andrew C. Mccarthy

In the United States, the president is Barack Obama, a non-Muslim. His childhood experience of Islam, which ended when he was just ten, occurred in Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim country, but a non-Arabic one where the teaching and practice of Islam is very different from what it is in the Middle East....

Nourhan Elsayed

I can hate that the
media has created an idea of what it means to be Muslim. I can hate feeling
Muslim. With the speculation that has emerged about the intent of the
horrendous crime, I feel Muslim. You can’t fight something you don’t name. The
media’s hesitation toward calling this a hate crime says to me that people
think that the right to practice Islam without fear is not a cause worth
fighting for. Without naming this as the hate crime it was, the message is that
hate toward Islam is not a cause worth deconstructing and extinguishing….

Essraa nawar

Essraa nawar

While today many Muslims and Arabs lack the right educational opportunities because of the economic and political circumstances, most Arab and Muslim household place a high value on educating their children. A typical Arab/Muslim family will do the most they can to have their children go to good schools and colleges. The families set high expectations and many children end up with master's degrees and Ph.D.s; others are entrepreneurs, restaurant owners, doctors, government officials, athletes and so on. On the other hand, Arabs and Muslims have a huge interest in movie making, singing, architecture, art, and literature. All forms of art are welcomed and the world has to remember that the European renaissance happened as a result of the ancient and new knowledge reacquired from Muslim scholars….

al-Qalam Special Correspondent

"Even the most basic elements of 1400 years of Islamic civilisation are absent from the curricula in most of the world's schools. The subject is just not on the world's educational radar screen. And the result is an enormous vacuum. When developments in Islamic societies break into the headlines, few journalists - and fewer of their readers - can bring the slightest sense of context to such news."….

Nadeem F. Paracha

Nadeem F. Paracha

With the way episodes of hate-speech on TV are being viewed and lamented after the Peshawar tragedy, the responsibility of the local and multinational companies who sponsor potentially controversial shows was bound to come up....

Mümtazer Türköne

Mümtazer Türköne

And no matter how arcane the rhetoric and mentality of ISIL may seem, it is actually making a direct appeal to this new world we inhabit. What's more, the real target of ISIL is not the people who live around the peripheries of society, people who have not been able to throw off the shackles of tradition or village life; no, instead, the real target is those people isolated and alienated in the shadows and surroundings of modernity. While these people search for an escape from this modern prison which leaves them so unhappy, crushed and without hope, they rush to the calls made by organizations such as ISIL…..

Ramzy Baroud

Ramzy Baroud

Though the media public discourse is severely restricted to some, it is generously open for others such as for those morally flexible intellectuals and media jokers who applauded the Israeli war on Gaza, as the rest of the world protested its devastating carnage. For now, Okasha and Adeeb will continue to take centre stage, while thousands of brilliant voices of intellectuals and journalists are muffled and censored. It is hard to imagine that in this age of awakening, such mockery will continue for too long…..

Irfan Al-Alawi

Finally, no review of radical Islamist websites in English would be complete without consulting Salafi Talk, a site promoting Wahhabi doctrine. "Salafi," referring to the original three generations of Muslims living with, and immediately after, Muhammad, has been abused as a cover term for "Wahhabi." Wahhabis who call themselves "Salafi" do not follow the examples of the early Muslims, but claim the term "Salafi" as an indicator of rigidity against the passage of centuries, and because they know that admitting they are Wahhabis alienates many Muslims......

Nihad Awad

Nihad Awad

IS core message is not Islamic. It is a political message improperly couched in Islamic terminology. I say improper because, as evidenced by the overwhelming rejection of IS by Islamic scholars, no faith sanctions its atrocities. Instead of misusing Islamic terminology, western media should refer to IS as a criminal organization. These two elements — justice and a media willing to deny violent extremists a pulpit— are often missing from discussions on ridding the world of IS corruption….

Bakari Gueye, Tr. New Age Islam

... dozens of
European countries have now agreed to devise sophisticated measures to control
the border with an aim to create obstacles for the ISIS recruits in travelling
freely. Most importantly, these countries have tied up with the internet
providers and social media networks to hunt the jihadist outfit where it hurts.
And that is being done by working together to prevent jihadist ideology from
reaching the targeted youth in their impressionable ages. Representatives of
Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter were invited to Luxembourg on the 8th
October to meet with 28 European interior ministers and discuss ways to
counteract the intensive use of social networks by ISIS. ...

Ekrem Dumanli

Ekrem Dumanli

The
pro-government media do not really care about the concepts of Haram and Halal.
If they did, they would not have told so many lies or published slanderous
reports about innocent and honourable people. They are, on the other hand,
disturbed by the innocent people who were placed under arrest because they
stood firm……

Pervez Hoodbhoy

Pervez Hoodbhoy

For 10 years
after 9/11, Pakistanis had lived in a delusionary bubble. A majority had been
brainwashed into believing that terrorism in Pakistan was the work of some
“foreign hand”. So, even when various militant groups angry at Pakistan proudly
claimed suicide missions against military and civilian targets, they were
ignored. No Muslim could kill another Muslim, was then the prevailing logic.
Surely Pakistan’s eternal enemies — India, Israel, America, or maybe even
Afghanistan and Iran — were responsible……

Raza Rumi

Raza Rumi

Beyond the veneer of prime time television shows that many think constitutes ‘journalism’, there are thousands of media workers at risk. They are endangered and pressured by state agencies, political parties, militant networks and mafias, which share a common goal: suppressing information and muzzling those who dare to dig facts……

Malcolm Harris

I don’t have the answer to U.S. involvement in the Middle East, but I think we’d all be a lot better off if the warmongers who were wrong last time found something else to do or were flatly ignored......

Dr Munawar A Anees and Maryam Iraj, New Age Islam

Dr. Munawar A. Anees and Maryam Iraj, New Age Islam

The daily Indian Express has alerted its readers (their own Hinglish notwithstanding) to “Get set for Pakistani English or ‘Pinglish’” by inserting hilarious quotes in the like of: "Since I have to go to my village to sell my land along with my wife, please sanction me one week's leave." And the classic PTV faux pas, at Pakistan vs. India cricket series, says it all: “We want them win.” Finally, a website on business English has this advice for the unwitting users of Pinglish: “if you want to make it big on the international market place, consider taking up some English language lessons from a centre where international English is spoken, or even try to find one where the English language instructor is a native English speaker.”…..

Huma Yusuf

Huma Yusuf

Not a single person has been put on trial for killing a journalist in Balochistan. And nothing has come from Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch’s announcement in January that his government would launch a judicial inquiry into journalists’ killings in the province. The national picture is no better: hardly anyone has been convicted of killing a journalist, and the one high-level inquiry into Saleem Shahzad’s killing that did take place identified no culprits, and was widely dismissed by the media community as a cover-up……

Kaleem Kawaja

I have been watching with keen interest for about 20 years now the various attempts of India's Muslim community to publish English language newspapers. With repeated dismal performance of well-meaning ventures by capable and well educated Muslim individuals, it is a sad story and it is very difficult for me to understand why it is so….

Ali Hashem

Arabic news websites' most-read stories are currently those related to atrocities allegedly committed by the Islamic State (IS). The topics of these stories vary from sexual violence to beheadings, and all sorts of behaviour inherent to medieval times. Some stories involve internationally known figures who are quoted saying things about IS; the row over former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s memoir is a good example….

Rabia Chaudry

Rabia Chaudry

Not that in any circumstance is Muslims obligated to specifically and individually condemn terrorism or atrocities committed by Muslims, let’s be clear about that. I reject completely the call by other Patheos writers that I or anyone should write about ISIS (frankly I can write about whatever I feel like, and so can everyone else), but it’s important to note that the silence of the Muslim writers here was not only on the issue of ISIS. It was a general silence…..

Khaled Almaeena

Khaled Almaeena

Social media highlighted the Palestinian plight and human suffering, the holocaust, the annihilation of a people whose only request is to live in freedom, peace and dignity. But the mainstream media in the United States adopted a totally callous approach. Almost all mainstream networks, such as CNN, Fox and their affiliates went ballistic accusing Hamas of “attacking Israel,” holding the movement responsible for the current situation and threatening the security and stability of Israel! Some anchormen even fabricated lies…..

Khaled Ahmed

Khaled Ahmed

An Indian-Gujarati friend of mine, with whom I share my enthusiasm for the Gujarati community of Karachi, has written something about me that needs only marginal correction. Writing in the Hindustan Times of May 12, 2014, Aakar Patel observed: “In a profile of his by a Western writer, I was alarmed to see that the columnist Khaled Ahmed, one of my heroes, actually paid one of the groups to keep them off his back. Such, then, is the lot of the writer of opinion in Pakistan.”.....

Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

Pakistan exists under a rule of terror imposed by a military-mullah combine, and it is, consequently, not surprising that the medium which attempts to unravel this truth and to criticize the prevailing order, has been under constant attack.....